


but i guess you can't be free of what you keep inside

by hardlystraight



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: (mention only) - Freeform, (p.t. mentioned only), Bisexual Female Character of Color, Bisexual Male Character, Discussions of Bisexuality, F/M, Homosexual Activity, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 22:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16417373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlystraight/pseuds/hardlystraight
Summary: Phillip has a string of exes - several of the male variety - whose lives cross with his during his relationship with Anne.  He is far from ashamed of his tendencies, but it's something he's never wanted to be honest about, let alone with someone he intends to marry.Or, three times Phillip lied about his past relationships and one time Anne kept him honest in his present one.





	but i guess you can't be free of what you keep inside

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys i know this is a belated addition to the greatest showman fic catalogue, but i recently finished this lil thing and wanted to publish it. both anne and zendaya have enormous dick energy and no i don't take criticism.

It's when Anne meets his fourth ex, entirely by accident, that Phillip decides to stop hiding.  The men are all married -- sans Jacob, an eternal bachelor -- and some even were at the time, with wives and children.  He knew he should have felt remorse for it, for being a _home-wrecker_.  But their faces, caught in temporary ecstasy - no, temporary _relief_ \- meant he lacked any reasonable -- or functional -- guilt for his actions.  Besides, one or two of them had married Sapphic women, ones who'd had dalliances of their own.  He had a scandalous reputation, one built on uptown gossip and rumour, and there was nothing wrong with living up to the lie sometimes, as Phin would often assure him.

 

* * *

 

 

"Anne, this is Christopher, and his wife Helen.  He used to assist me with my um," Christopher's eyes, hardened in warning despite his polite manner, met Philip's, "...plays."

"With all these boys coming in to help you write 'em, I'd be surprised if any of them were your own!" She was wry and deadpan in the delivery, but Philip laughed awkwardly anyway.  The conversation needed to be shepherded back to safer topics.

He asks Helen about her needlework and tries not to remember Christopher pressed against a mirror, half-naked in his own dressing room.  The tailor shop had been closed for several hours, but it was still dangerous, behaving like this.  The fog of their laboured breathing had blurred the reflection of deliciously sinnable crimes taking place.  They knew not to make a sound.

Helen tells them that it was going well, that business was good and that she and her husband may have been able to afford some new furniture for the living room.  Christopher looked ready to fall asleep or punch someone.

~*;`,*~

Angus was someone with whom he had actually stayed in contact with since their short-lived fling.  A miner who'd worked on the railway back when he was sixteen, Angus was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a baritone of a voice that intimated and relaxed one in equal measures.  When Phillip was stupid enough to visit well-known dens and frequent drag shows, Angus has been exactly the working class, masculine presence that fuelled Phillip's teenage rebellion.  They had both been stupid, really, and it was a miracle they hadn't visited the day the bar was raided, but they were young and drunk on overpriced scotch and the affection of another man.

Their letters were, obviously, entirely sterilised.  Cordial greetings, "how's the wife" and such, and small updates on anything of interest.  Angus had secured a small farm in Canada, he'd written in his last letter, and prayed that the land he was given would be harvestable.  Anne, mistakenly, had read the letter.  All of it.  "Accidentally."

It wasn't a huge concern - they never took risks, they were mostly through with that phase of their lives.  But nonetheless, watching Anne with an open envelope, the one with someone whose large fingers Phillip could still vividly remember as the return address, was nothing short of heart-stopping.

~*;`,*~

He had met Jacob through a friend, that was how most of them knew one other.  Homosexuals knew a few dozen other homosexuals, and a gentle network around New York was established.  The seedy bars downtown were too dangerous for folks like him, folks with a lot on the line if anything came out.  As it stood, he still avoided them - though most of his prestige was lost, Philip still had a family, a lover, a passion to fall if he gambled incorrectly.

Jacob was drinking tea at a coffee shop when Philip recognised him.  He'd gone over to say hello and hadn't missed the way Jacob's eyes ran over him once, twice, three times.  Anne joined him, introduced herself as a friend as Jacob did the same.  Philip felt the pain, the repression, the struggle of hiding himself as two of the greatest loves of his life put themselves down for the sake of his reputation.

An illustrator and occasional painter, Jacob had, in all fairness, helped him with his plays as they met as part of a commission for some pamphlets.  When it came out that they knew several of the same people, far too many to be a coincidence, it hadn't been long before Jacob had pushed him onto the couch late one night, slightly tipsy on brandy, and mouthed at his neck, whispering unspeakable things into the hollow of Philip's throat.

~*;`,*~ 

Jean-Pierre Bernard was also a friend of a friend, and had married one Ruth Goldspring.  Philip had spent many nights drinking with them in their home, watching as Ruth pulled her hair tight against her scalp, dressed in men's trousers and sat her latest lover on her lap.  Poker at the Bernard's was always by candlelight, curtains drawn but more than bright enough to see the shine of rouge on Jean-Pierre's cheekbones and the shift of Ruth's biceps as she held her woman close.  Sometimes, Jean-Pierre would pull him away to show him the few dangerous pictures he _did_ own; sketches not just of the male nude -- a subject easily explained away -- but of the explicit and dirty actions that he undertook with other men.  Men like Philip.  He saw himself in a few of the drawings, face turned away or left blank as insurance.  It was the most thrilling he'd felt at the time, touching the parchment of these images of love, devotion, or of filth and ecstasy.  Images that could get him thrown into prison, or worse.  It had turned him on beyond belief.

He and Bernard hadn't quite been lovers, but they had a mutual respect of one another, and certainly an appreciation.  Phillip was young and handsome enough to be commissioned as a model, and Bernard dressed in Ruth's daywear was hilarious and strangely convincing.

He and three of his children attended a children's ballet to show support for their fourth, a young boy who happened to be in the same class as Mr Barnum's eldest.  The sound of his soft voice behind Philip after one performance startled the latter into spilling his champagne, prompting Anne to assist him with cleaning up the mess.  He gently rebuffed her and sorted himself out while she introduced herself to Jean-Pierre.  The man's eyes twinkled in recognition; he knew love when he saw it.

"You're his new lover, then?" Anne's eyes bulged slightly in fear, but Philip lay a hand on the crook of her elbow.

"Jean," he snarled, lips pulled back into a warning grin.  Jean brushed some imaginary lint off Philip's shoulder and sighed.

"It's okay Philip, I won't embarrass you.  Do come over sometime though, there's a group meeting next Sunday.  Looks like you could use a session or two." Anne gave him a significant look, he really didn't blame her, then smiled cordially at Jean-Pierre.

"It was lovely meeting you, Mr Bernard, but we really should be going."

"Of course, darling, but do call." With a pointed gaze, Mr Bernard makes his way to his son, he and his wife embracing the child and chatting about the performance.

 

"I ... know of Jean-Pierre's 'group meetings'," Anne said haltingly, tugging her shawl tighter around her shoulders.  The dress she wore was shiny Japanese silk in a sleeveless Chinoiserie gown, a matte silk scarf slipping from her biceps.  Phillip barely processed what she said, and when he did, panic mode immediately ensued.

"Y- of them?  What have you heard?" Anne looked as uncomfortable as he felt, and she seemed to wrestle with some inner conviction before blurting out that she had attended one or two in the late 1880s.  She barely recognised him, she admitted, out of drag.  Phillip touched her arm softly, then made sure to meet her eyes.  They were frightened, but she had committed to it.  To speaking about it.  He tried to look as warm and comforting as he could while suggesting they leave early.

 ~*;`,*~ 

He tries to explain himself, at first.  Anne flayed herself open in a few syllables, it made sense that he would be the next to describe his own encounters.  But the words had never, ever passed his lips, and he had promised himself that they never would.  He was a homosexual, in some sense of the word.

"But you like women as well?  You like me?"

"Anne I adore you, you're the most gorgeous, talented, unparalleled artist I've ever met.  It's just that I adore men as well."  A long exhale seemed to seep out of Anne's ribcage, and she smiled slightly.

"I have danced with women before.  I have loved them, the way I love men." She turned her gaze to him, still wary, but surer of herself.  "We are the same.  The sexes - they are interchangeable for us." Phillip lay his head on her lap, and she brushed a slender hand through his hair.

"What does that mean for us?" Anne paused.

"I don't cheat." She said firmly, tension gripping her body beneath his.  He rushed to diffuse it.

"Me neither, never on a partner, but.  I've been with married men before." She side-eyed him gruffly but didn't comment.  "Anne I do love you, but this is a very personal thing to lay bare.  Does it not affect the way you see me?" Anne snorted and resumed playing with his hair.

"I'm not going to list the ladies of our local area with homosexual inclinations, thank you.  If you'd like - by all means." Except Philip doesn't particularly feel like discussing Christopher, or Angus.  They aren't part of this relationship.  And they certainly wouldn't enjoy their behaviour becoming more public than it already was.

"Maybe we can do to one of Jean-Pierre's parties-"

"Maybe I could peg you-" They say in unison, and Philip looks up - alarm and sudden arousal whipping through his body.

"You-You D-D" he stutters, before taking a deep breath, "Do you have the equipment?" Anne grinned, nodded to the bedroom, and gave him a wink.  He was on his feet before he knew what he was doing.


End file.
